Another Year

Scrolling through photos of Malaysian delegates at this year's WHO Executive Board Meeting, I only realized it has been a year since I was there. Time flies, life has been so much busier, life in the hospital is so much different. But I guess Allah has the best laid plans, everything has a reason. 

One instance is that I was involved in helping to draft a framework for WHO's Roll-back Malaria program in Geneva. I thought my ideas were good, but now I am back in my own country seeing how Malaria really looks like, I had to think twice. It's funny that we prescribe mosquito nets, and the mother tells me the mosquitoes are INSIDE the net, nets are too old and torn, some are even not used and are modified to become fishing nets! (the family originated from Indonesia, and they were back in their hometown at that time).

In terms of my country's own public health threat, the past few months has been exhausting with the non-stop cases of dengue coming in. I did not work on something about dengue when I was in the WHO, and wished I had. The dengue epidemic in Malaysia has totally went out of hand, and it is frustrating to have the same child coming in with recurrent dengue, which he had a few years ago. I could get angry assuming that the parents did not do enough to protect the child, but on further questioning, the parents in fact had done their best to make their house aedes-free. But the problem is, what's the use if you are the only one working to eradicate aedes. The neighbours are still ignorant, the community does not care when a container with stagnant water is outside of their house compound. The community is still malaise about dengue when nobody in their family has died of dengue. They still wish for a miracle vaccine and the government to provide these to solve the problem. They haven't seen a mother crying in regret, asking for forgiveness in front of her daughter's dead body that has died of dengue.

I did not experience this before, and never had a burning desire to solve this at a global level. I guess it is really helpful to be in contact with patients, knowing how they live, eat, sleep, how their socio-economic conditions are. As the words that is stuck at my supervisor's door at the WHO HQ: "Is it sufficient to treat patients and send them back to the conditions that makes them sick in the first place?". That is the thing that kept me going, what gets me through the long hours, sleepless nights, and all the unnecessary yelling and scolding. Another year to go. I'll be back